diff --git a/src/downloader.jl b/src/downloader.jl
index bcea7c5b..b69277f7 100644
--- a/src/downloader.jl
+++ b/src/downloader.jl
@@ -44,6 +44,8 @@ function unique_filename(url)
     return string(hash(url))
 end
 
+file_ending(provider::TileProviders.Provider) = ".some_unknown_image_format"
+
 function download_tile_data(dl::PathDownloader, provider::AbstractProvider, url)
     unique_name = unique_filename(url)
     path = joinpath(dl.cache_dir, unique_name * file_ending(provider))
diff --git a/src/tiles.jl b/src/tiles.jl
index cda9e0e9..9d7b87a4 100644
--- a/src/tiles.jl
+++ b/src/tiles.jl
@@ -108,6 +108,12 @@ function load_tile_data(::AbstractProvider, downloaded::AbstractVector{UInt8})
     return FileIO.load(format) # this works because we have ImageIO loaded
 end
 
+function load_tile_data(::AbstractProvider, downloaded::String)
+    io = IOBuffer(read(downloaded))
+    format = FileIO.query(io)  # this interrogates the magic bits to see what file format it is (JPEG, PNG, etc)
+    return FileIO.load(format) # this works because we have ImageIO loaded
+end
+
 function Base.wait(tiles::TileCache; timeout=50)
     # wait for all tiles to get downloaded
     items = lock(tiles.tile_queue) do